Certain consumers may receive telecommunications, cable television, and other media from separate suppliers. The signals are provided to each customer via coaxial cables and tip and ring wires connected to an outdoor enclosure known as a network interface device (NID). A network interface device may be attached to the exterior wall of the customer's house or garage, for example. Such devices provide a physical interface or point of access for testing, maintenance, service enhancement or modification, safety and the like.
Network interface devices may be mounted outdoors in unsheltered locations where access by the service provider is readily available. Therefore, such devices are subject to environmental weathering conditions which can be severe. Enclosures for such devices may be fabricated from polymeric materials to accommodate the need for high volume manufacturing and low cost. However, extremes of temperature and other factors can cause degradation of the polymers and thereby shorten the useful life of the enclosure and/or the devices located therein. Additionally, numerous cables entering the network interface device, as well as the active electronics inside, may produce a significant amount of heat. The same components that create heat are themselves sometimes heat sensitive, and therefore, some form of temperature stabilization is desirable.
Currently, outdoor enclosures that use active cooling are large and electrically or battery powered. The cooling is generally provided by an air-conditioning unit similar in architecture to a residential air conditioning unit. There is a need in the art for an inexpensive, low maintenance system for actively controlling the temperature of a network interface device.